I got my pistol permit Tuesday, 108 days after I began working to get it.

Considering all the trouble I’d gone to, I expected a little ceremony. But it felt more like a visit to the Motor Vehicle Department.

Starting at the Norwich police department’s records window, I went over the permit to make sure my name was spelled correctly and so forth, showed my driver’s license to prove I was who I said I was, signed my name on the back, forked over $70 (cash or bank check or money order only) and got my picture taken for the department’s files.

The permit, issued by Norwich Police Chief Louis Fusaro a week earlier on May 28, was temporary, good for 60 days. It let me legally carry a pistol.

There was a catch, however. Only a permanent permit lets me buy a handgun. So that’s what I got next.

To receive the five-year permit from the state, I took the 50-mile trip from Norwich to state police headquarters in Middletown.

Permits also are issued at Troop E state police barracks in Montville. While closer to Norwich, the barracks has limited hours: 7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday only on the second full week of the month (which is next week). The Middletown headquarters is open 8:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. on weekdays all month long.

(Windham County residents might want to go to Troop C barracks in Tolland instead of Middletown. That barracks issues pistol permits on the first full week of a month.)

State police headquarters has heavy security. I had to go through a metal detector to get in, and the trooper at the door confiscated my car keys for some reason. Perhaps ironically, considering my new status, a sign warns that only law enforcement personnel can carry weapons inside.

Of course, the paperwork continued. While standing in line, I had to fill out a different application from the one I already submitted. The wait was close to half an hour. Then once I got to the window where permits were issued, I had to show the clerk my passport, driver’s license, the temporary permit, the form I had just filled out and pay yet another $70.

Personal checks were accepted this time, although credit cards weren’t.

My photo was taken for the final permit, and then it was put into my hands. It looks similar to a driver’s license. For the next five years it will let me buy and carry pistols legally throughout the state.

The permit also qualifies me to buy rifles and shotguns as well as ammunition, things residents don’t need permits to do now but soon will because of the state’s recently strengthened gun control law.

Page 2 of 2 - Ammunition buyers will need eligibility certificates starting Oct. 1, and anyone buying rifles or shotguns will need similar certificates on April 1, but my permit can substitute for both of those documents.

I actually started this process — applying for a pistol permit and writing about it — on Feb. 17 when I took a day-long handgun safety course offered by National Rifle Association instructors Paul Scungio and his son Brian Scungio.

I submitted my application and got fingerprinted at the Norwich Police Department on March 1. The application was sent to the state to be processed and didn’t return to Norwich until May 21, 11½ weeks later.

Then Norwich police took a week to approve the temporary permit, and I picked it up and got the permanent one a week after that.

It was a grueling process. The rules certainly do help keep guns out of the wrong hands, at least unless you’re willing to break the law to get a gun.